Weaver's new 63 footer, the ultimate sportfishing ride
It’s the law of the aquatic jungle: big fish eat little fish. And if you’re an angler who likes to catch big fish, you already know that nothing tempts them more than a live little fish. You want the ultimate boat for fishing live bait? Weaver’s new 63 is the king.
A quartet of tuna tubes are mounted inside each gunwale.
First off, let’s establish the difference between “big” and “little,” because in this case, it can vary quite a bit. Let’s say “big” is a 1,000 pound black marlin. In this case, a two foot long bonito counts as “little”. And on this boat you’ll be able to use one for bait, thanks to a quartet of tuna tubes mounted inside of each gunwale. But you might want to go after 300 pound yellowfin instead, in which case a foot-long skipjack is a prime bait. No problem; these tubes are fed by a manifold system with individual valves that allows the water flow in each tube to be adjusted up to 1,800-gph.
The livewell manifold has individual valves that allow the water flow in each tube to be adjusted up to 1,800-gph.
The same plumbing system, which is fed by a pair of 1.5-hp Hayward Jacuzzi pumps, also feeds a 250-gallon cockpit livewell, a 100-gallon transom livewell, and a 90-gallon in-deck livewell. Put these four fishy life support systems together, and this boat can keep more finned critters swimming then some big-city aquariums.
The electronics system features another quartet: four transducers, which let the captain look for fish in every direction. The most impressive is a CH 20 “sweeping” sonar which can spot fish up to 1,000 feet away, 360-degrees around the boat. This unit is wired into the sound system so you can listen to the sonar returns as well as see them, and the ‘ducer is so big it has to be built into a retractable dome. Luckily, with the construction methods used to built the Weaver 63 custom touches like this are relatively easy. The hull is cold-molded epoxy over wood, not molded fiberglass. It’s built with triple-planked Okoume plywood, stringers are made from Douglass fir, and the hull bottom and structural components are beefed up with a layer of Kevlar. The net result? The 63 is every bit as strong as a molded-fiberglass boat, but it also weighs significantly less at 72,000 pounds. Compare that to 105,000 for a Viking 64, 115,000 for a Hatteras 64, and 90,700 for a Bertram 63.
The salon is spacious and fitted out as much like a work of art as a sportfishing boat.
Does the lighter weight mean a fuel savings? Not really—the 63 is juiced to the max, with 3,100-hp supplied by a pair of Cat C32’s that are the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Cruise along at a mellow 1800 rpm and you’ll be doing 35-mph while burning (gulp!) 80.2 gph. That shakes out to 0.4 miles to the gallon, which is pretty darn good fuel economy if you’re either running a 63-footer or buying stock in Exxon-Mobil. Firewall the throttles and the 63 charges up to 45.4 mph while burning 156.8 gph. Oil men, rejoice.
Despite the “good things come in threes” adage Weaver goes for fours once again in the cabin. The 63 has separate staterooms for the owner, captain, crew, and guests. Chopping the belowdecks area into so many different rooms means that none are particularly large, and with barely enough room to walk alongside the berths, the crew’s quarters is down-right cramped. (Get over it dude, you live on a $2.2 million sportfishing yacht.) The salon and galley areas, however, are not only spacious but are fitted out as much like a work of art as a sportfishing boat. The settee is aft, with a dinette to starboard and the galley to port. The dinette merits a second glance; the table pedestal has an integrated wine chiller, and a huge rod box slides out from underneath. Countertops are granite, the sole is teak and holly, and the cabinetry is bookmatched.
The table pedestal has an integrated wine chiller.
Like other modern high-end sportfishing yachts, the Weaver also has an entertainment system that’s worthy of a millionaire—even though you won’t notice it at first glance. Though you don’t see a TV, simply pressing a button causes a 52” flat-screen to rise out of the countertop. No surround-sound speakers are within plain view either; they’re integrated into the overhead. And the stereo and server are interconnected to each stateroom as well as being piped up to the flybridge. There’s also a dedicated Furuno in the salon, so you can even look for fish while you take a lunch break.
Systems like this require a heck of a lot of wires, which are also hidden from view. And you’ll want to check those wires out, because how well organized and loomed the wiring is tells you a lot about how good the boatbuilder is. So swing open the electric panel, and take a gander at Weaver’s wire-works. Everything is color coded, tightly wrapped and loomed, and wire bundles reach out to the bus bars in ramrod-straight lines with military precision.
Some of those wires run all the way down to the bottom of the boat, where Weaver installed the final coupe de grace, a through-hull underwater camera. It feeds displays at the bridge, in the salon, the cockpit, or even at the tower upper controls. So wherever you may be, you can catch a glimpse of the fish in their natural environment—just before they get eaten by the king of the underwater jungle.
